The cold war was a very real threat and I'm sure you'll remember that there were Russian missiles right next door to the US for a short time.

What do you mean by move on? Russia is still not any friend of the US. There is no cold war anymore, but Russia is definitely no ally of the US.

Well in fact, since the Soviet Union fell and now that we have the perspective of history, and now that a lot of those secret documents have been released it's rather clear that it was the USA was the biggest threat during the cold war years.

The Soviets were always ten or more years behind in almost every endeavour and their engineering was so rushed that their equipment was more likely to blow up in their faces than threaten the West. It was the USA that almost went to war several times and the USA that spent most of the cold war doing awful things in third world countries. It was the USA that interfered in the democratic election of governments in South America, Australia, and Africa, and the USA that sold most of the weapons the world used to arm itself during that period. They also *always* had far more bombs and weapons than the Soviets.

The "cold war" mostly consisted of the USA arming itself to the teeth and trying to take over half the world all the while blaming the same thing on the Soviets. I'm not arguing that the Soviets were friendly or well intentioned themselves, they weren't. Totalitarianism is pretty obviously not a good thing.

However, the major threat to world peace and democracy was really from the USA not the USSR and they were the ones that started the arms race and kept it going for the most part. They were the ones destabilising democracies around the globe.

If I were in charge of the Air Force, I would definitely not use any Russian software, especially when it comes to matters related to security and national defense. A KGB guy is basically running Russia and they are not to be trusted.

Absolutely SPOT-ON, Neruda. Most of the tech world knows (believes strongly) that iPad 3 is less than two weeks away from announcement/release. Why in the world would the Air Force want a tablet that is about to be "previous-gen"? My experience with government purchasing agencies is that the very TITLE of the iPad 3 requires that the former PO be withdrawn, rewritten, and resubmitted with the NEW identifier . . . iPad 3 instead of iPad 2.

They can't write the new P.O. until they know the name of the product to put on it. Apple might make the next iPad the 2S instead of the 3. Even the special forces doesn't know what Apple's going to do.

"That (the) world is moving so quickly that iOS is already amongst the older mobile operating systems in active development today." — The Verge

How pathetic - The Cold War is still going on ? Using this rationale, only software developed in the USA is able to be used ? Seriously - if Russia is a significant threat still, then so is Germany, so is Japan. They can't even BUY products from Apple, as they are made in China, not the USA, and hence may contain rogue hardware/firmware/software which will compromise the nation's security (let me put it this way - there are probably more USA programmers trying to bring down their own Govt or "stick it to the man", than there are Russian programmers trying to infiltrate the US Airforce ...). Still, all those gays and commies are a continued threat I guess ...

This whole story was a bit ironic, seeing how the original Digiplayer in-air entertainment tablet that major airlines began using in 2003/2004 were originally designed by Rockwell Collins, the company behind the B-2 stealth bomber, to keep their flight crews entertained on long missions.

How pathetic - The Cold War is still going on ? Using this rationale, only software developed in the USA is able to be used ? Seriously - if Russia is a significant threat still, then so is Germany, so is Japan. They can't even BUY products from Apple, as they are made in China, not the USA, and hence may contain rogue hardware/firmware/software which will compromise the nation's security (let me put it this way - there are probably more USA programmers trying to bring down their own Govt or "stick it to the man", than there are Russian programmers trying to infiltrate the US Airforce ...). Still, all those gays and commies are a continued threat I guess ...

Get a clue about national security, technology and information transfers between governments and then come back and post.

...Russia is certainly no ally of the USA and they usually side with every evil country in the world and enemies of the US, whenever there are conflicts.

Evil? Really? Are you that ignorant? Saddam, Osama, Pinochet, Soeharto... just about the majority of tyrants in the modern world were funded/supported/gained their power through US support. It was the US that stomped democracy in Iran first before Khomeini rise into power.

what the hell are they teaching to their kids in the US these days?

And oh, the US just sold $30 billion worth of arms to Saudi, you know a country that have a whopping record of human right abuses (women are forbidden to drive and such).

what i don't get is, with the amount of resources the US military has, don't they at least have one or two coders that can write an app specific to their needs? Isn't GoodReader written by one developer.

It's a good thing that you're not in control of national security or important military matters.

Russia is certainly no ally of the USA and they usually side with every evil country in the world and enemies of the US, whenever there are conflicts.

I see your simplistic black and white view of the world extends beyond the products you buy. That's refreshing to know. All Russians are evil!! U.S. is good!! Does everyone wear black and white hats in your world, to show which side they are on?

Evil? Really? Are you that ignorant? Saddam, Osama, Pinochet, Soeharto... just about the majority of tyrants in the modern world were funded/supported/gained their power through US support. It was the US that stomped democracy in Iran first before Khomeini rise into power.

what the hell are they teaching to their kids in the US these days?

And oh, the US just sold $30 billion worth of arms to Saudi, you know a country that have a whopping record of human right abuses (women are forbidden to drive and such).

Indeed, we collapsed real democracy in Iran in 1958.

The only places that men were allowed to meet were mosques and since anyone trying to overthrow our dictator would face torture and death, the only people willing to try it were fundamentalists. Hence what they have today.

So we switched our allegiance to Saddam Hussein and gave him weaponised gas to use on Iranians in a war we encouraged in which a million people died.

We watched while Saddam used up the spare gas on Kurds then, when all the gas was used up, we killed 100,000 civilians to stop him, after the most thorough UN investigation in history had already proven there was none left.

Michael Jackson had it right: if we want the world to be a better place, we should start by looking in the mirror.

Many of the most important software concepts were invented in the 70s and forgotten in the 80s.

Hey, US AirForce? It's even worse than that! The iPads you've ordered were all built in China! You know ... communist China!

Oh, and about them Russians? I don't know if you know this, but erhm ... the Soviet Union kinda went belly-up two Decades ago. Yup, that's right, Sir. They ain't commies no more. Just thought you might want to know.

*salutes and facepalms*

They're still one of the world greatest powers. Have you seen America "freeing" Chechnya? Intervening in Ossetia? Have you maybe, heard about Russia's stance on Iran? Maybe you've at least heard America deployed antinukes in Poland, against Russian missiles?

[While we're on that particular subject, those antinukes mean that in order to defend the US Motherland, England and Netherlands and France and Germany will be sprayed with nuclear waste... But who cares about those subhumanbeings, "Europeans"...]

And by the way, Russia also still has nukes, T-90s, Migs, and the ability to strangle Europe's energy sources. The DoD is pretty much right to question any software from Russia, after all, the NSA itself planted backdoors all over Windows for twenty years. They know better than you

Social Capitalist, dreamer and wise enough to know I'm never going to grow up anyway... so not trying anymore.

The only places that men were allowed to meet were mosques and since anyone trying to overthrow our dictator would face torture and death, the only people willing to try it were fundamentalists. Hence what they have today.

So we switched our allegiance to Saddam Hussein and gave him weaponised gas to use on Iranians in a war we encouraged in which a million people died.

We watched while Saddam used up the spare gas on Kurds then, when all the gas was used up, we killed 100,000 civilians to stop him, after the most thorough UN investigation in history had already proven there was none left.

Michael Jackson had it right: if we want the world to be a better place, we should start by looking in the mirror.

You forgot "we still watch while Turquia uses spare gas on the Kurds". It's an ally, like Saddam was. remember Saddam golfing with Bush? I'd so not like being friends with an US President

Social Capitalist, dreamer and wise enough to know I'm never going to grow up anyway... so not trying anymore.

Evil? Really? Are you that ignorant? Saddam, Osama, Pinochet, Soeharto... just about the majority of tyrants in the modern world were funded/supported/gained their power through US support. It was the US that stomped democracy in Iran first before Khomeini rise into power.

what the hell are they teaching to their kids in the US these days?

And oh, the US just sold $30 billion worth of arms to Saudi, you know a country that have a whopping record of human right abuses (women are forbidden to drive and such).

You mean,that country where you can be killed for saying you don't believe in Muhammad? The country that tortured Dallas Munden in 1983 for business debts towards the royal family? The same country that had a Royal Family member expulsed from the USA this very decade for torturing a business partner on US soil for the very same reason? That country?

Social Capitalist, dreamer and wise enough to know I'm never going to grow up anyway... so not trying anymore.

Oh yes. US does something wrong they are blunders/mistakes. Others do that they are "evil". Nice worldview.

There is no such a thing as "evil" or not, when it comes to countries. People like Stalin or Hitler or Bush are evil, because they use their countrymen (and have them die...) for their own power/benefit.

A country has no other obligation than to protect its people. This is, after all, Morals 101.

1- A country has no obligation other than towards its people
2- The people only tolerate the government in order to maintain order and protect the people
3- The government only has obligations towards the country.

Those three rules ensure, provided they are really used, that your civilization functions properly.

Social Capitalist, dreamer and wise enough to know I'm never going to grow up anyway... so not trying anymore.

It's a good thing that you're not in control of national security or important military matters.

Russia is certainly no ally of the USA and they usually side with every evil country in the world and enemies of the US, whenever there are conflicts.

As I said, there is no "evil" country, only evil men. America has behaved in very evil ways (bombing Japan with Commander Perry, manipulating its own public opinion into a war with Spain, cutting Japan's access to oil and forcing it to attack Pearl Harbor, though you will never learn it like that in school, tricking Saddam into attacking its neighbor and then retaliating, declaring war on the german Reich in World War One knowing fully well that the reason they used was void*, shooting at german ships conducting search and rescue operations on third parties**, toppling non-right-wing governments in South America, leaving the French die in Indochina, then waging war in Vietnam, using Agent Orange there, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, hiring ex-Nazi torturers... should we go on? ).

America also has behaved in very good ways. You cannot classify countries as "evil" or not. Countries just do what they have to do to survive. There are enemies of the USA. They are not "evil", just enemies. As soon as someone starts namecalling another country, you know they're going at some point to talk about nuking them, or about some other mass destruction weapon use.
Look at Iran, for example. Iran is one of the oldest cultures in the world,with Mesopotamia, Egypt and China. It's one of the most prolific cultural centers, which created or influenced three major religions (Jainism, influenced, Zoroastrism, created, Islam, heavily influenced). I don't mention Judaism, though obviously Zoroastrism had an impact on Judaism. Iran also had a huge effect on shaping the Greek culture. Even Queen , the rock band, had an Iran-rooted singer (Freddie Mercury). Iran was also a country that was heavily exploited by the English for strategical reasons, and then for oil reasons. Iran defended itself by toppling the US-friendly Shah, which the USA had evily put in place. I would not want to live in Iran nowadays, but the current Iran state is caused by the USA 's evil behavior. Iran wants nukes to defend itself from nearby countries that already stated their intentions to nuke Iran (and probably already have used tactical nukes against Iran). Iran has a dictature that's strengthened by USA policies. Who's evil? Nobody. The USA do their policies to defend their needs to access oil. Iran does its policies, which includes having a dictature in order to resist the USA, to defend its oil.

It's a sad world. Don't mix everything up by adding an idea of "good" and "evil" countries. The only way you can influence this is by writing your Parliament Representative and requesting a USA change of policies, in order to commerce more with Iran, for example, that "Axis of Evil" country, making Iranese richer and more likely to topple their Dictatorship.

My point, in a nutshell: Iran/USA/Russia/North Korea are not EVIL, they are COUNTRIES. They're doing their best to survive. Don't play into Fox News stories, facts demonstrate that the United States of America have not got a clean track record to tell others what's evil and what's not. Don't despair, though. The USA, most of Europe, Canada and many other countries are democracies, which means you can influence your lawmakers and rulers to do less evil acts and more moral acts. Will you, though, tolerate to have higher unemployment rates if it means less people in another country will die of hunger, or suffer from dictature? That's the real question. Will you have the courage to do the not-evil thing and push your Senate, even though you might lose your job/retirement over it, to do the not-evil thing?

* USA declared war after german submarines sinked an armed ship carrying weapons and ammunition, and the UK/US newspapers/governments pretended for 80 years that the Lusitania was "a civilian unarmed ship". That kind of disinformation.

** in effect, both breaking Geneva Convention and forcing German ships to abandon men to their death, destroying the tradition of rescuing shipwreck victims that had existed since the Middle Ages.

Social Capitalist, dreamer and wise enough to know I'm never going to grow up anyway... so not trying anymore.

It's a good thing that you're not in control of national security or important military matters.

Russia is certainly no ally of the USA and they usually side with every evil country in the world and enemies of the US, whenever there are conflicts.

Technically the Russian Federation IS an ally of the USA as they occasionally hold joint military exercises. Of course you have also forgotten that most of the world considers America as the epitome of greed, evil, corruption and moral bankruptcy. On the face of it I don't think the American people or their government can really claim that they are somehow better than anyone else.

In addition to the Russian app, the Chinese builders, and lack of certification – ponder also that Apples chief designer is a dirty imperialist Englishman wanting to get the colonies back for his Queen (what do you think the Knighthood is about) and that Steve Jobs was part freedom hating, Q'uran thumping Syrian.

Like others I think the imminent arrival of iPad 3 has contributed to the halting of this order, a retina display alone would be a big advantage to pilots who, by necessity, have good vision.

Hey, US AirForce? It's even worse than that! The iPads you've ordered were all built in China! You know ... communist China!

...

*salutes and facepalms*

It's even worse than that - a company backed by the Chinese government (which is essentially the same thing as just saying "the Chinese government") bought Cirrus, a U.S. manufacturer of general aviation aircraft. Guess who the USAF Academy uses to build its trainer aircraft? Yup, Cirrus! Or, wait, no, now it's just China!

If I were in charge of the Air Force, I would definitely not use any Russian software, especially when it comes to matters related to security and national defense. A KGB guy is basically running Russia and they are not to be trusted.

It's a good thing that you're not in control of national security or important military matters.

Russia is certainly no ally of the USA and they usually side with every evil country in the world and enemies of the US, whenever there are conflicts.

I agree. It's a good thing I'm not in charge of national security. I'm thankful for that.
Thanks for directing my attention to the new threat against the US Airforce: warfare by PDF-reader!

Coming to think of it, isn't Angry Birds made by Finnish people? I find that suspicious. They're right there on the border of Russia, ya' know? They can't be trusted either. And "Angry Birds" ? Isn't that a veiled threat against the US Airforce, really? Yeah, we shouldn't trust those commie red birds either!

Well in fact, since the Soviet Union fell and now that we have the perspective of history, and now that a lot of those secret documents have been released it's rather clear that it was the USA was the biggest threat during the cold war years.

The Soviets were always ten or more years behind in almost every endeavour and their engineering was so rushed that their equipment was more likely to blow up in their faces than threaten the West. It was the USA that almost went to war several times and the USA that spent most of the cold war doing awful things in third world countries. It was the USA that interfered in the democratic election of governments in South America, Australia, and Africa, and the USA that sold most of the weapons the world used to arm itself during that period. They also *always* had far more bombs and weapons than the Soviets.

The "cold war" mostly consisted of the USA arming itself to the teeth and trying to take over half the world all the while blaming the same thing on the Soviets. I'm not arguing that the Soviets were friendly or well intentioned themselves, they weren't. Totalitarianism is pretty obviously not a good thing.

However, the major threat to world peace and democracy was really from the USA not the USSR and they were the ones that started the arms race and kept it going for the most part. They were the ones destabilising democracies around the globe.

Let me guess...you're Canadian? So that means that you:
1. Live within 100 miles of the United States
2. You make and drive "American" cars
3. You have wonderful access to all of our chain restaurants
4. You watch our TV programs and movies

This is meant to be taken as a joke. The point is: it's fine to criticize the past from today's perspective. Choices were made by governments. Good choices, bad choices, but the world (I think) is better from our (American) involvement. Let's see...10 or so democracies before WWII, over 100 now.

...Of course you have also forgotten that most of the world considers America as the epitome of greed, evil, corruption and moral bankruptcy. On the face of it I don't think the American people or their government can really claim that they are somehow better than anyone else.